No More Heroes

An intentionally boring open world punctuated with wild, intense action, No More Heroes and its main character Travis is a good representation of the gamer and gamer's mindset. The world feels so lifeless and mundane to them and so they are desperate not only for some form of escape, but also to satisfy a thirst for violence. The fact that gamers complain so much about the open world only makes it funnier and reinforces the point the game is trying to make. It also makes you realize how the open world of the Grand Theft Auto games are more like a playground than an actual world. So No More Heroes ends up not only being more over-the-top and ridiculous than any Grand Theft Auto, it is also far more realistic at the same time. Such polarization and contradiction is the result of extraordinarily high artistic ambition, and such full realization of that ambition is an achievement rarely seen in the video game medium. It is what makes No More Heroes a special and unique game, even if it is not always the most enjoyable game to play. By being both the epitome of gaming and the antithesis of gaming at the same time, No More Heroes is much more than a satire of Grand Theft Auto, it is a satire of the entire video game medium and industry as a whole.